Chaim Weizmann

‘…an excellent piece of work.’
Itamar Rabinovich, President of the Israel Institute

The Arab-Israeli conflict has been one of the most defining features of recent world history, flaring up into open war fare yet again in Gaza at the end of 2008 and provoking large-scale demonstrations in the streets of cities across the world. When the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann (1874 1952) spoke before the Conference on 27 February 1919, he would have appeared as only one of the many representatives of minor nationalities putting their case to the peacemakers. Ninety years after the Conference, what Weizmann said and did there is an essential part of our understanding of how this small, but critical, part of the world evolved out of the deliberations.

T.G.FRASER is Professor Emeritus of History and Honorary Professor of Conflict Research at the University of Ulster. His other books include: The USA and the Middle East since WorldWar II (1989), The Arab-Israeli Conflict (1995), and Contested Lands: A History of the Middle East since the First World War.